Mobile phones and the Internet

The first mobile phone to have Internet connectivity was the Nokia 9000 Communicator, launched in Finland in 1996. The concept of a mobile phone based Internet did not take off until prices came down from that model and the network providers started to develop systems and services to enable the Internet on phones. NTT DoCoMo in Japan launched the first mobile Internet service, i-Mode in 1999 and this is considered the birth of the mobile phone based Internet. In 2001 the mobile phone based email system by Blackberry and its iconic phones were launched in America.

To make better use of the small screen and tiny keypad and one-handed operation typical of mobile phones, a simpler programming environment was created for the mobile phone Internet, called WAP for Wireless Application protocol. Most mobile phone Internet services operate on WAP.

The growth of the mobile phone based internet was initially a primarily Asian phenomenon with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan all soon finding the majority of their Internet users accessing by phone rather than by PC. Developing World countries followed next, with India, South Africa, Kenya, Philippines and Pakistan all reporting that the majority of their domestic Internet users accessed on a mobile phone rather than on a PC.

The European and North American use of the Internet was influenced by a large installed base of personal computers, and the growth of mobile phone Internet use was more gradual, but had reached national penetration levels of 20%-30% in most Western countries. In 2008 the cross-over happened, when more Internet access devices were mobile phones than personal computers. In many parts of the developing world, the ratio is as much as 10 mobile phone users to one PC user on the Internet.

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